


Speak to Me

by Delphi



Series: Snape of St. Brutal's [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Drama, Dubious Consent, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Manipulation, Reform School, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breaking Filch is a foregone conclusion, but Severus has never let knowing the ending put him off a good story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak to Me

As Severus had already discovered, books were very often the solution to life's little problems. 

Almost everything he had ever learned worth knowing had come from a book: science and mathematics, history, geography, how civilized people spoke and how civilized people lived. Even the most tedious bit of fiction was a welcome distraction from the more lethal tediousness of real life, and so Severus was rarely without a library loan on his person. It was a preventive measure, and on the day that Mr. Filch took notice of this, it proved unexpectedly fortuitous. 

"What's that, then?" Filch asked, halting in his attempt to repair a light fixture and peering down at Severus from atop the ladder.

Severus's hands clenched reflexively around the soft-worn cover and yellowed pages. His shoulders hunched; no one had actually _told_ him he wasn't allowed to read on duty. He was still hardly expected to do much but follow Filch around and occasionally hold a torch, and he was poised to point this out before he weighed the wisdom of it against the possibility of actually being put to work. He opted for obtuseness instead and marked his place with his index finger before tilting up the cover for Filch to see.

Filch squinted and gave no sign of recognising it.

" _Great Expectations_ ," Severus clarified. He wondered if Filch needed glasses.

"I can see that," Filch said, sounding annoyed. "I told you before, if there's schoolwork you're meant to be doing..."

"It isn't for class."

He could have said it was and been released to his room, but he was not particularly tempted. His roommate, Reg Black, was a compulsive self-abuser even by the standards of St. Brutal's, and Severus was inclined to give him the evening to get it out of his system so that he might have an undisturbed night. Besides, he and Filch were currently in the out-of-bounds area above the gymnasium, and there were all sorts of interesting doors leading to all sorts of interesting store rooms that Severus was taking careful note of in between pages.

Filch did not grumble for him to put the book away and look sharpish, as Severus might have expected. Instead, he seemed impressed.

"A big book like that?" he asked. "Just for fun?"

Severus was in fact reading it for edification, because it was part of the Canon, but there was no sense quibbling over semantics. He nodded.

Filch peered at the book again. "It's not mucky, is it?"

"It's _Dickens_ ," Severus scoffed.

Filch nodded with an uncertain air and then turned his attention back to the light fixture. Or at least he made a show of doing so. It seemed to Severus as if he tightened a nut he had just loosened. 

"Is it any good?" Filch asked. 

Severus shrugged. "It's Dickens."

Filch hummed vaguely. He was silent for a few seconds, during which he loosened the same nut again. Severus watched as he licked his lips.

"You could read it out," Filch finally said. "If you wanted."

Severus was fairly certain this was a queer thing to ask. He was sometimes expected to read aloud in his English and Latin classes, and he didn't mind it, even if listening to his less literate classmates stuttering through a passage was an exercise in frustration. Filch, however, was not a teacher, and moreover, he was now looking very sorry to have spoken. Severus decided that it was in fact a queer thing, and for that reason he decided to play along, just to see what would happen. 

He opened the book to where he had left off. Then, after a second thought, he flipped back a dozen pages to the beginning.

"'My father's family name being Pirrip,'" he read, "'and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.'"

Filch made no sign for him to stop, and so Severus continued. His eyes flicked up from the page every few sentences at first, until it became clear that Filch meant to do nothing but work and listen with a small frown of concentration on his face. Eventually, Severus sat down on the floor with his back to the wall and made himself comfortable as he fell into the rhythm of the story. 

A half hour or so passed, and Severus had nearly reached the end of the second chapter—the bit where Pip was burgling his own house—when the wiring was finally put right. Filch climbed down the ladder with uncharacteristically quiet steps and tried the switch. The lights came on, but Filch only stood there, a step or two away, appearing to wait for something.

Severus paused and then carried on reading to the end of the chapter, although his mouth was by now quite dry. "'There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe's tools. Then, I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.'"

With that, he closed the book around his finger once more. He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, gauging the extent of the strain, and then let his gaze climb lazily from Filch's boots to his wide, pale eyes, lingering in between on the front of his trousers.

"How'd you get so good at that?" Filch asked. He folded his hands together and then twisted them, like he was trying to wring them out.

The question took Severus by surprise, and for a moment he could not think of what to say. He shrugged and frowned. "It's only reading."

Filch shook his head. His face went slightly red, which he tried to hide by stepping forward and gathering up his tools. "You could be on the wireless," he said quietly, "reading like that."

Such a thing had never occurred to Severus. It didn't really hold any appeal, but he was flattered nonetheless. 

"I don't know," he said, fishing for Filch to say something admiring again. 

"I mean it," Filch insisted. Then he looked at Severus, and his mouth hooked at one corner as if he were almost going to smile but didn't want to. "A book like that, just for fun." He shook his head. "Hmph. D'you think the lad'll get away with it?"

Severus had him. He wasn't entirely certain how, but he had him.

* * *

"Snape?" The blankets rustled on the lower bunk, and the iron bed frame swayed.

"What?" Severus asked.

"Are you awake?"

"Would I be answering if I wasn't?"

Black laughed too loudly, and Severus sharply hushed him.

"Keep it down. Do you want McGonagall coming up here?"

"Sorry," Black whispered. "Sorry. I was just wondering, um, if you were looking forward to Bonfire Night."

Honestly, it was like rooming with an infant. "And this couldn't wait until morning?"

Black made one of his noises, an annoying little whimper. He didn't seem to like Severus being cross with him, which was one of his few redeeming qualities, but Severus could have lived without the sound effects.

"Sorry. I can't sleep."

Severus said nothing.

"So...are you? Looking forward to it, I mean."

Severus sighed. "Not really."

He usually enjoyed Bonfire Night at St. Brutal's. The headmaster seemed to feel that a significant portion of the student body having been done for arson was no reason not to celebrate in full. There were always hot drinks and a small fireworks display courtesy of Hagrid, and two years ago, to the entertainment of all, the shed had caught fire. This year, however, great fuss had been made over the fact that James Potter was being put in charge of the display, and he had even been allowed to go to Aberdeen with Hagrid to buy supplies. Potter was still here with the rest of them, to Severus's mingled resentment and malicious satisfaction, on account of his parents having been killed in a car accident last June. Some people had all the luck.

"Oh. Me neither."

"I'm glad we got that sorted," Severus said.

"Are you going to be here for Christmas?" Black asked.

"No. I'll be going home."

He had been mildly surprised to see his name on the list of students approved to leave for the holiday. His mother remained a mystery to him sometimes. He did not particularly want to go back to Cokeworth, but it would look bad if he didn't, so he supposed it could be borne. 

"Oh," Black said again. He sounded disappointed.

"I expect you'll have the room to yourself," Severus said, "if they don't make you move down to the dormitories. I don't think I need to tell you what will happen if you touch any of my things."

"I won't!" Black said, and Severus hushed him again. "I just thought...it might be nice, if we were both here for Christmas. We could have a midnight feast, like at my old school."

"That would be contraband," Severus said firmly, just in case Black was fishing. "There's no food allowed in students' rooms, you know that."

"Oh," Black said. "Right. But I'll miss you. I'll really miss you."

Severus was not paid to decide such things, unlike Professor McGonagall and the headmaster, but it seemed clear to him that Black was as mad as a hatter. Something really ought to be done about it.

"Don't be an idiot," he said. "It's only October. Go to sleep."

* * *

"'My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman.'"

Filch did not ask him to stop, and so he kept on reading. He brought the book with him each evening when he reported for duty, and he usually made it through two chapters as Filch went about his rounds of door-checking and minor repairs. On Saturday afternoon, Severus found himself slouching in the chair in front of Filch's desk, pressing on through the third chapter in a row as Filch sat across from him, carefully pasting a stack of receipts into the school ledger. It did not seem to be a very demanding task, and yet Filch took a very long time with it before finally putting away the glue pot and settling back in his seat with his hands folded on top of his stomach.

Severus was accustomed to being watched. You were always watched at school, or nearly so, and he had become adept at telling one kind of surveillance from another. There was a crucial difference between the perfunctory vigilance of a Professor Binns or Madam Pince, who were only counting heads by habit, and Professor McGonagall's surprisingly canny glances. There was the oily residue of Professor Slughorn's lingering gaze, interspersed with his blind disinterest, and there was the glinting precision of Professor Dumbledore's bright eyes, which always made Severus feel as if he were next in line for a particularly cheerful vivisection. 

This was something else. It wasn't quite a train station toilet look, but it was close enough to make Severus's stomach tighten and his prick go half stiff. It was a wanting-something look, a guilty one. Curious, Severus raised his hand to his collar and stole a glance, waiting to see if Filch's eyes would follow. They did, staring as Severus loosened his tie. Gooseflesh cropped up on the back of his neck when his fingertips brushed his throat. It felt nice, and so he did it again.

"'Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it.'"

He thought about sucking Filch's prick. He tried to picture the look on Filch's face—the way his eyes would widen and the way his mouth would open stupidly when Severus made his offer. Or maybe, he thought, he wouldn't offer at all. Maybe he would _tell_ him to open his trousers and show him his prick, and maybe Filch would do it. He imagined Filch's hands fumbling with his belt. Unbuttoning his trousers. Taking it out, a great big hairy one, like in the drawings from the dirty book Severus had found as a boy.

"'What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew?'"

Maybe he would even let Filch fuck him. It seemed like that was something he should hold in reserve in case he needed leverage later on, but he had liked it when he tried it, and the prospect of buggery on demand was appealing. He wondered if it would hurt, with Filch's prick being as big as it was. It might be fun to tell him it was his first time and that he had to be gentle—to say yes and then make him wait and go very slowly. His own prick was now standing up noticeably in his trousers, right out in the open, but he knew that Filch couldn't see it from over the desk, which only sharpened his excitement.

He slowed in his reading as he neared the end of a chapter. His voice was starting to wear thin. His tongue stuck unpleasantly to the inside of his mouth, but he forced himself through the last few lines. 

"...'and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast.'"

His voice broke on the second-to-last word, and he cleared his throat in irritation.

There was silence for a long moment. Severus looked down thoughtfully at the book and dug his clawed hand hard into his thigh until his stiffie began to abate. Filch was still staring at his throat, but then he seemed to come back to himself and shook his head hard before looking away.

"Ought to get you some water," he muttered. "You'll lose your voice, going on like that. Don't know what I was thinking."

"Water would be nice," Severus said, very politely. He liked the idea that Filch thought he should owe him something for reading.

He followed Filch to the kitchens, which proved to be empty. The door to the courtyard was slightly ajar, letting in a bitter draught, and through the narrow gap, Severus could see the two skinny old dinner ladies having a smoking break over by the empty fountain. Filch opened a cupboard to take a down a cup, and Severus gazed greedily at the disorganized jumble within. There was a box of lemon-flavoured crystal jelly with the corner of one packet sticking out of it. 

Filch turned on the tap, and Severus seized the opportunity the moment his back was turned. He reached carefully into the cupboard and eased the packet of jelly powder out of the box, letting the sound of the water cover the rub of paper on cardboard. He slipped the packet quickly into the book, hiding it between two pages, and was waiting with a bland smile when Filch turned back around. He could get a cigarette for it, maybe even two if he waited for a non-pudding week. 

"Thank you." He let his fingertips brush against Filch's hand as he took the cup.

"Just—" Filch began, drawing back, but whatever he meant to say was swallowed down roughly. He put his hands in the pockets of his coat and looked out at the courtyard.

Severus drank down the cold water in three long swallows and then sighed in satisfaction.

* * *

"Snape?" 

Severus kept his eyes shut and elected not to answer.

"Snape?" Black whispered again.

Severus lay still, counting his own breaths.

Black was silent for a little while and then tried it one more time, small-voiced: "Snape?"

Severus groaned. "What is it?"

"Are you awake?"

"What do you think, Black?"

"Oh. Sorry."

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

Severus rolled over and peered sternly over the edge of the bunk. "Out with it, so I can get some bloody sleep."

"I was just wondering..." Black licked his lips. "...if you'd ever kissed someone. A girl, I mean."

Severus flopped back over onto his mattress, rolling his eyes. "That's a very personal question."

"I won't tell anyone," Black said quickly. "I was only wondering."

Severus had no intention of either swapping boasts with Black or providing him with wank fodder. However, the promise made things mildly interesting. He didn't believe him, of course, but it occurred to him that it might be useful to determine exactly who Black planned to share his personal business with. An imaginary girlfriend held little risk as a test subject, and he could wait and see where the rumour ended up.

"Yes," he said. "I have."

He heard Black sit up. "What was it like?"

"If I tell you," Severus said primly, "you can't be inappropriate."

Black paused and then audibly fidgeted. "I wouldn't."

This from someone who had a hole cut into his mattress. 

"She was a girl from my town," Severus said. He did not make up a name, deciding that he was a gentleman. "She was older—she's at university now."

"Was she pretty?" Black asked.

"Sort of," Severus said. You had to keep a lie realistic, and he was aware that he was likely of little interest to beautiful girls. "She was clever. She wasn't actually my girlfriend, but we went around sometimes."

Black seemed to accept that, and Severus continued.

"She asked me back to her house one day. Her parents were going to be out all afternoon. We went to her room to listen to records."

"What did you listen to?"

Severus plucked names from the air. Sometimes on town weekends, students with leave would go to the record shop and queue up to listen to the headphones, or they would idle in the cafe where the wireless was tuned to Radio 1, and they would come back singing bad renditions of whatever they had heard.

"The Rolling Stones. Elton John."

"I like Elton John." 

"Good for you," Severus said.

"What, er, happened next?"

"We were sitting on her bed." He thought about the bedroom in Ray Fothergill's house, the one belonging to the son away at university. The posters of footballers on the wall. The tidily made bed that no one had slept in for some time.

_"Not in here, all right?" Ray said, hovering outside the door, looking uncomfortable._

_"I like the posters," Severus said, lying back on the bed and looking at the walls from upside down._

_Ray's hand curled around the door jamb. His lips pressed tight together._

_Severus slipped a finger in between the buttons of his shirt. His knees shifted apart. He didn't want to get up._

_"I'll let you bugger me, if you like."_

"She said I could kiss her if I wanted to."

He heard Black fidget again, but if he was touching himself, he was doing it quietly.

"Did you?"

"I did." In truth, he had never kissed anyone, unless you counted Lily Evans when he was ten years old, but she had turned her head at the last moment and his lips had mostly landed on her cheek.

"What did it feel like?"

"Wet," he said. "Hot."

He heard Black swallow hard.

"Have you, then?" he asked, willing to be entertained by implausible stories of a girlfriend who lived in France.

Black hesitated. "Sort of," he said, sounding uncertain. "I don't know."

"If it was your mother or sister, it doesn't count," Severus said drily.

"Oh," Black said. He made one of his sounds. "No, then. I guess not."

* * *

"One more chapter?" Severus asked on Friday night when Filch had made the rounds in search of students out of bed. He leaned against the wall and looked at him entreatingly. "Or two? The next one's short."

The time had come to push, just a little, and see where it got him.

Filch would not meet his eyes. "I don't know about that. It's late."

_I don't know_ was very clearly not a _no_.

"I want to see what happens next," Severus said, frowning a touch reproachfully. "I've exercised a great deal of self-restraint, you know, not reading ahead."

He had of course finished the book two days ago, but Filch didn't need to know that. 

"It's late," Filch said again, but more feebly. "Don't want to be disturbing anyone."

Severus's stomach fluttered. That was very promising. It wasn't staying up with a student that he objected to now, but only someone finding out about it.

"We could go to my room," Severus said with perfect, stupid innocence. He savoured Filch's wide-eyed jolt for a moment before adding: "My roommate won't mind."

"No," Filch said, although a panicky note belied the firmness in his voice.

Severus felt his palms prickle with excited sweat. Filch didn't even like the idea of Black knowing about them. They officially had a secret on their hands.

"We could go to your room, then," he said.

He had narrowed down the general area where Filch's apartments had to be, but had not yet pinpointed it to a door. The odds of getting in tonight were not in his favour, but curiosity gnawed at him. There was no such thing as a private room for anyone but the staff, and he suspected that Filch kept all the best contraband he confiscated there.

" _No_ ," Filch said again, the panic more urgent now. 

Severus cocked his head. "Why not?"

Filch's already ruddy face turned even redder. He pulled at the sleeves of his coat in irritation. "It wouldn't...it wouldn't be appropriate."

"Professor Slughorn lets students socialize in his rooms," Severus pointed out.

Filch immediately stopped evading his gaze and looked at him sharply. It was a peering, uncertain sort of expression, as if Filch couldn't quite make up his mind about him—as if Severus were, in his head, still potentially two people. Good or wicked. Innocent or clever. Alive or dead, like Mr. Schrödinger's cat. Severus rather liked it.

"Have you..." Filch looked about cautiously, even though the corridor was obviously empty. His voice was low and quiet, and his frown deepened. "Has Professor Slughorn ever asked you in?" 

Severus had not prepared for the question, although he realised belatedly that he should have. Which was the right answer? A yes would make it clear that he was amenable to doing favours for staff. However, it seemed to him that someone like Filch, who was not particularly friendly with the teachers, might not want to have professorial seconds. Besides, if this was to be a secret, it ought to belong to just the two of them.

"No," he said, eyebrows rising in an approximation of ignorance. "I always have schoolwork when he has his parties. I'm not really friends with anyone there."

Filch looked relieved. "Good lad. You stay clear of those kinds of parties, all right?"

His excitement rose. He felt a little ill, or maybe only restless. 

"Is there tea in the staff room?" he asked, making one final stab at it for the night.

Filch looked confused at first, and then took his meaning. He paused a moment too long. 

"I haven't had a cup of tea in six months," Severus confided. 

Filch visibly wavered, and Severus waited patiently to see which side he would land on. Tea seemed to be on the short list of things that Filch approved of. It was wholesome, and Severus was beginning to think that perhaps Filch wanted him to be wholesome too. Well, then. What more respectable way of spending an evening was there than tea and a good book?

"One chapter," Filch said at last, reluctantly. 

Severus smiled at him. 

They made their way down the corridor, past locked classrooms and the padlocked kitchen doors, to the dark staff room. Filch let him in first and then hesitated after turning the lights on, looking as if he was considering leaving the door open. He then shut it quietly and locked it behind them. 

There was something particularly nice about that sound, the click of a deadbolt. It made Severus shiver as he sat down on the sofa. He left ample space beside him and then found his place in the book and continued where he had left off as Filch put the kettle on.

"'As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my education under that preposterous female terminated.'"

He glanced up now and then as he read, while the tea was brewing. Filch had his hands curled around the edge of the counter, his back tense. Severus could hear him breathing. He liked this kind of quiet, which closed in around him, warmer and more muffled than the echo-y silence of the night-time corridors. You heard every little sound in here. The clink of the porcelain. The faint rustle of Filch's shirtsleeves. He thought he could hear what was nice about his own voice, which was low and smooth and not so much in his nose when he read.

Filch poured two cups, and to Severus's disappointment set the one meant for him directly on the coffee table instead of handing it to him. He then chose to sit in the armchair, leaving Severus alone on the sofa. Never mind, Severus thought, and used the opportunity to sprawl. He reclined against the arm of the sofa, one leg bent and the other resting on the floor. Filch looked him over in nervous flickers before staring down into his tea as if reading along from the bottom of the cup.

Two chapters turned into three, then four, then five. They reached the part where Severus had started merely skimming, and so the story recaptured his interest. He read on, pausing now and then for a sip of tea. His posture slowly slipped until he was nearly lying down, not entirely on purpose. His eyes grew heavy and the words grew more hushed as he reached the end of the fifth chapter.

"That's enough," Filch said. "Bed time. Don't want you doing your voice in."

Severus closed the book and yawned. He didn't argue. You couldn't get overambitious when pushing people, not if you wanted them going away thinking they hadn't been pushed at all. Besides, he really was tired, and so he only hummed his agreement as Filch got up to gather the cups. According to the clock, they had been in here nearly two hours.

He let his chin drop against his chest and closed his eyes. The sounds of Filch doing the washing-up quietly clinked and sloshed in his ears. The sofa sagged beneath him, a spring digging into his back. He was still relaxing when the tap turned off, and he would have put money on Filch staring at him in the silence that followed. He could feel it.

"Come on," Filch finally said, his voice gruff. "Let's get you back."

Severus rose unsteadily to his feet and rubbed his eyes. He picked up the book and went out into the corridor, yawning again as he waited for Filch to lock up behind them. Then he headed willingly to his room, walking slowly as if too tired to do much but drag his feet, and suppressed a smile as he felt a hand briefly touch him between the shoulders, guiding him along. 

He was dropped off at his door and went inside, taking care not to wake Black, who would only wish to ask more of his stupid questions. He waited, listening for Filch's footsteps, which were silent for a moment before setting off down the corridor. Black's deep, snuffly breathing was soon the only sound, and it occurred to Severus belatedly that perhaps he ought to have tried feigning falling asleep in the staff room. 

It was a particular skill of his. Having a reputation as a heavy sleeper when you weren't was useful in the dormitories, and when he had been very young and still living at home, he had sometimes pretended to fall asleep on the sofa so that he could stay up longer and watch telly. Most often, his father had jostled him and sent him to bed with the threat of a spanking, but sometimes he had got away with it and watched the news through the blurry bars of his eyelashes until he fell asleep for real and woke sometime later as he was being carried up the stairs to bed, slung over his father's shoulder.

His prick decided it was not as sleepy as the rest of him. He laid _Great Expectations_ down atop the dresser and then slipped into the water closet, easing the door shut behind him. He waited a moment to make certain that Black hadn't stirred, and then he unzipped his trousers and got his prick out. He wanked quickly and quietly, thinking about Filch touching him when he thought he was asleep. A hand on his thigh, or on his arse. Heavy breathing. Careful fingers easing down his zip before creeping inside. He imagined Filch with a stiffie, stuck inside his trousers, a great big bulge. He imagined Filch rubbing it, looking at him.

It didn't take long. He came, luxuriating in the thought of opening his eyes and catching Filch in the act. Red-faced, red-handed. Guilty. His breathing stopped for an instant and then left him in a sigh. He swallowed hard and smiled to himself.

This was nice, he thought as he ran the water from the washstand at a trickle and cleaned the spunk off his hand. This was going to be fun.


End file.
